Escape From New York: Louis Rossmann Edition - Hopefully he does not make Texas a bughive

Louis has reuploaded Mend It Mark's Tom Evans Mastergroove video, but with an introduction that includes a friendly message to Tom Evans.

Here, we see some of the best qualities of Louis in action: his willingness to speak out about the bullshit companies trying to pull, fighting for what he believes is right, and fighting for people much smaller than him. Mend it Mark sounds like a cheerful guy who is passionate about repairing things and I might check out some of his other stuff.
 
Have a look at his homemade capacitor discharge tool. It's seriously geeky overkill and I want one for myself.
I would definitely get this thing if I ever had to do anything involving capacitors again.

Even using a resistor to do it is sketchy because if you guess wrong it can fail to discharge or even explode.

Capacitors are literal death eggs. Yeah they're mostly just a nuisance but there are freak incidents when even pretty small ones can set your heart off or otherwise kill you.
 
What size and capacitance are you talking about? Just put it on a wrench, if it goes zappy-zap it was still charged otherwise it was discharged. I guess you haven't handled CRTs when caps scare you.
Somebody in the comments said their trick was to discharge them using an light bulb. Seems like a good compromise to me, they're cheap so if it gets wrecked by a juicy capacitor there's no hard feelings and you'll know if the capacitor was charged.
 
Somebody in the comments said their trick was to discharge them using an light bulb. Seems like a good compromise to me, they're cheap so if it gets wrecked by a juicy capacitor there's no hard feelings and you'll know if the capacitor was charged.
Also a great idea. But it might be very bright for a bit depending on the voltage. Might be better than having to grind it off your wrench.
Resident Electro Troll Mehdi also has a few "insights":
the lecture ends at 2:30 and the explosions begin
 
I don't know how anyone can play around with electricity. I have been shocked before and it fucking hurts.
I'm always helping my dad do random projects around the house, and when it comes to electricity-specific things, there was one thing he always taught me...

NEVER touch the black wire, because that's the live one that will fuck your shit up.

So now I always think "Black = Bad", which incidentally relates to real life as well, so it's easy to remember. 👍
 
I'm always helping my dad do random projects around the house, and when it comes to electricity-specific things, there was one thing he always taught me...

NEVER touch the black wire, because that's the live one that will fuck your shit up.

So now I always think "Black = Bad", which incidentally relates to real life as well, so it's easy to remember. 👍
I went to a high school that had technical programs, including electrical classes. I spent about 2 weeks in a class with a master electrician before I realized I was too fucking dumb to mess with electricity. When I went to drop the class, that's the reason I gave the teacher, and he said he was happy if the only thing I learned from him was to respect electricity.
 
I would definitely get this thing if I ever had to do anything involving capacitors again.

Even using a resistor to do it is sketchy because if you guess wrong it can fail to discharge or even explode.

Capacitors are literal death eggs. Yeah they're mostly just a nuisance but there are freak incidents when even pretty small ones can set your heart off or otherwise kill you.

Caps aren't so bad, it depends on where they are being used. If you are removing them from a circuit, just test the circuit for voltage. If you think there is an internal issue with the circuit, check a cap. If there are multiple caps they are almost certainly tied to each other and would dissipate into each other if there was a circuit issue. This excludes things like pwas.
In general I find DC caps trickier, but AC caps... don't really hold a charge. I mean they do, I'm not saying they don't. But once the main source of power is gone they immediately try to discharge. DC is a bit different because they are directional and if something does go wrong in the circuit it may cut the DC caps off from components that would typically discharge the caps. Still taking them out of the circuit and letting them chill for a bit is fine. Caps aren't storage devices like batteries.
Speaking of batteries, I greatly dislike them and they are way more potentially dangerous.
 
Sarcasm not tuned in correctly? I'll do better next time...

In case it wasn't obvious: discharging large high voltage caps on monkey wrench will leave a mark and might damage the capacitor. It's still hella fun tho.
 
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